Ray Ison, Professor in Systems at the UK Open University since 1994, is a member of the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice Group. From 2008-15 he also developed and ran the Systemic Governance Research Program at Monash University, Melbourne. In this blog he reflects on contemporary issues from a systemic perspective.

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

"But the risk is now out there – and growing – because policymakers have
now woken up to the risks of climate change. “There have been two
terrible realisations,” says Michael Jacobs, who used to advise Gordon
Brown on the issue. “We have started too late, and it doesn’t matter how
much solar and wind power there is – you are still burning all the
coal, oil and gas. Even if you do so more slowly, it will still go into
the atmosphere and cause climate change.” Jacobs adds that, in the past
quarter of a century, when countries could have been putting in place
the infrastructure for a new green economy, they have been going in the
opposite direction. They have invested in fossil fuel-burning power
plants and built energy‑inefficient buildings in cities designed for
cars."

This is a sample paragraph from a long and compelling article in the Guardian entitled: Can the world economy survive without fossil fuels? Compelling as it is however, and as responsible as the Guardian has become... and not before time on climate change - there are many more radical thoughts in need of thinking and actions in need of doing.

Part of the Global Effort to Tackle Poverty, Hunger and
Environmental Degradation - the CGIAR

From March 3 to 6, the International Institute of Tropical
Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria, hosted the global systems research and
development community at the International Conference on Integrated SystemsResearch for Sustainable Intensification in Smallholder Agriculture. Social and
agricultural scientists participating in the conference stressed the importance
of agricultural research to be done with a holistic systems perspective, and
for better links between research on improvements in specific commodities and
natural resources management.

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Those who know anything about Australia will despair at the current government's climate change and post-carbon society policies - in fact it has none of the latter as argued forcefully today by Ian Dunlop.

I am immensely impressed with the leadership that John Hewson continues to provide in this space both nationally and globally - especially w.r.t to carbon divestment. Those organisations joining this global movement are to be commended as they embody what is both systemically desirable and morally responsible. The following letter from John via GetUp summarises the arguments:

The renewable energy industry -- brow beaten after years of intense
lobbying from the big 3 dirty power companies and a vicious offensive
from the Coalition, struggling with significant job losses and decline
in investment -- caved and reluctantly accepted a huge cut to the
Renewable Energy Target (RET). They did this to save their industry,
which is under attack. The outcome of this deal would be far from ideal,
but our government wants a fate for the industry that is even worse.
The death of the renewables industry, and the (short term) rise of the
dirty 3: Origin, AGL and Energy Australia.

As a former leader of the Liberal Party I've seen first hand the
undue influence big corporations can have over politicians and public
policy. It's time to shift the balance away from the big energy
companies and their dirty and expensive power habits to Australian
consumers who want cheaper and cleaner power.

The dirty 3 companies are the main reason the Abbott Government is
squibbing on its clear election promise to keep the RET at 41,000GWH. All
three are complete hypocrites. They claim to support renewable energy
while walking the corridors of power, lobbying to undermine it.

We don't need government legislation to break the strangle hold
these big power companies have on our household energy, or our own clean
energy futures. The dirty energy companies might want to protect
their huge investments in coal, gas and coal seam gas, but we can --
right now -- stop them in their tracks.

How?

Join me in sending a powerful message to politicians and the dirty
power companies that Australians want renewable energy and we're
prepared to vote with our feet to get it. Switch your home or
business power, it takes less than 5 minutes and you'll be joining the
greenest power company in Australia: click here to switch now

It's the one thing they will not be counting on, and right now it's
the very best thing that you can do if you support renewable energy, our
clean energy future and the job creation and investment it brings.

Yesterday's outcome is indisputably bad for all of us; for future
investment in large scale renewable energy projects and job creation,
for our clean energy future and for our power prices.

How did we even get to the point where even the industry that fought
so hard for the RET is now accepting a drastically watered down stake
in their own future success? You can point the finger squarely at the
influence big companies like AGL, Energy Australia and Origin have on
public policy, companies with a vested interest in bolstering the status
quo of fossil fuel dominance and who have ensured the Coalition break
their pre-election promise not to cut the Renewable Energy Target. [1]

These companies only really care about one thing - and that's their profits. So let's hit them where it hurts and switch to a company that supports clean energy and is backed by 100 percent renewable power.

"Today's water
problems cannot be solved by science or technology alone. They are human
problems of governance, policy, leadership, and social resilience. "Rajendra Singh's life work has been in building social capacity to
solve local water problems through participatory action, empowerment of
women, linking indigenous know-how with modern scientific and technical
approaches and upending traditional patterns of development and resource
use."

This award is heartening for those of us who have worked in this field for many years.

A recent posting highlights concerns about the effectiveness of DEFRA, a small ministry by UK standards, in effecting policy internally as well as externally, especially in Europe.

"MPs are concerned that the hollowing out of Defra has left the core
Department less effective in persuading decision-makers in other
government departments and Brussels to follow its agenda. Firm
Ministerial leadership and sufficient in-house expertise is needed at
the heart of Defra to ensure it can deliver its priorities effectively."

ABSTRACT:
In this policy perspective, we outline several conditions to support
effective science-policy interaction, with a particular emphasis on
improving water governance in transboundary basins. Key conditions
include (1) recognizing that science is a crucial but bounded input into
water resource decision-making processes; (2) establishing conditions
for collaboration and shared commitment among actors; (3) understanding
that social or group-learning processes linked to science-policy
interaction are enhanced through greater collaboration; (4) accepting
that the collaborative production of knowledge about hydrological issues
and associated socioeconomic change and institutional responses is
essential to build legitimate decision-making processes; and (5)
engaging boundary organizations and informal networks of scientists,
policy makers, and civil society. We elaborate on these conditions with a
diverse set of international examples drawn from a synthesis of our
collective experiences in assessing the opportunities and constraints
(including the role of power relations) related to governance for water
in transboundary settings.

ABSTRACT This paper critically
examines how public policy makers limit policy and other institutional
design choices by a failure to appreciate (i) how situations may be
characterised or framed; (ii) how practices that generate neologisms
(invented terms or concepts) or reify (make into a thing) abstract
concepts can displace understandings, and (iii) the epistemological
bases of governance mechanism choices. An inquiry into the coining of
the neologisms ‘wicked’ and ‘tame’ problems is reported and the
implications for research and policy practice explored. As practices,
neologising, reifying, categorising and typologising have unintended
consequences – they remove us from the primary experiences and
underlying emotions that provided the motivation for formulating these
concepts in the first place. The failure to institutionalise the
understandings and experiences that sit behind the invention of the
terms ‘wicked’ and ‘tame’ problems (or similar framing choices such as
‘problematique’, ‘messes’, ‘lowland real-life swamps’, ‘resource
dilemmas’ or ‘complex adaptive systems’) present systemic constraints to
institutionalising social learning as an alternative yet complementary
governance mechanism within an overall systemic and adaptive governance
framework. Ultimately situations usefully framed as ‘wicked’,’ such as
water managing and climate change are problems of relationship – of
human beings with the biosphere. Re-framings, such as institutions as
social technologies and other research and praxis traditions concerned
with the breakdown of relationships may offer ways forward in the
purposeful designing and crafting of more effective institutions.